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the sea from Santa Barbara. This owned by Italian-Swiss, and is probably more like an Old World vineyard than any in the United States. The vines are trained on trellises after the manner in vogue in the wine-growing districts of Europe; the principal house is of the French balconied type common in New Orleans, and a French horn calls the pickers from the vineyard at meal time. A little chapel and a quaint sun-dial are further reminders of an old European country. The endless chain, on which the grapes are conveyed to the presses, seems like an American device. The marc, as the refuse stems, seeds and skins are termed, is thrown out into the yard adjoining the brick winery and fills the air with a peculiar odor.

In the Italian vineyards the grape-vines are trained on trellises (as in the vineyard on Santa Cruz Island, California), and it is necessary to use ladders in gathering the clusters. The pickers are women and children, who perform their tasks with much more gentleness and care than the laborers in a Californian vineyard display. The bunches of grapes are placed in wicker baskets, which are carried on the heads of the women or the shoulders of men to the press. In a small vineyard in a district into which modern methods have not yet been introduced, the press is merely a shallow wooden box, nearly square, into which the grapes are emptied, and are then crushed by treading them with the feet in the manner often spoken of in the Bible, and still followed in Oriental countries. The press is set on a roller over two big casks, so that it inclines to one or the other as the man changes his position: the juice, as it is expressed, running into the casks. After the juice has been extracted, the crushed skins and seeds are emptied into barrels, which are carried away in a two-wheeled bullock cart, as shown in one of the photographs. In larger vineyards, handvineyards, handpresses, operated by a screw, are used to crush the grapes. Though primitive and rude methods prevail largely all over Italy, some of the great establishments, owned by rich vineyardists, have hydraulic presses and employ modern machinery, as well as scientific methods of wine-mak

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ing.

It was from Piedmont (Italy) and the University of Turin that Mr. Pietro C. Rossi, President of the Italian-Swiss Colony, brought his scientific knowledge of grape-growing and wine-making, in which his ancestors had been engaged for generations. The vintage in an Italian wine-growing district lasts two weeks, and as all the grapes in that region must be gathered in that time, nearly the whole rural population-men, women and children-engages in grape-picking. The vineyards present scenes of great activity and gayety. The girls and women employed in grape-picking in Italy get small wages. In the north of Italy, much white wine is grown, to be made into sparkling (or, as the Italians call it, spumante-foaming) wine, for which only the virgin juice is used. The residue, after the virgin juice. has been extracted, is left in tanks to ferment with a little water, and produces a cheap wine of inferior quality; this is called picquette, and is the drink of the peasants. For in Italy everybody drinks wine the rich, those in moderate circumstances, and the poor: yes, even the very poor. Stupendous, almost incredible, quantities of wine are made in Italy. The production in 1907 was estimated at one billion four hundred and ninety-five million gallons; and, since little Italian wine is exported to other countries, nearly all this was consumed by the Italians themselves. Pretty hard drinkers, you say. Not at all wine-drinking peoples like the Italians and French are the most temperate in the world. In the picquette drunk by the poor there is only six to eight per cent of alcohol.

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Wine is rarely drunk undiluted, but commonly in the proportion of one-third water to two-thirds wine. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the advocates of national sobriety that nation of wine drinkers is a temperate nation; cases of alcoholism are almost unknown among people who, from childhood, have been accustomed to drink light wines with their food. The greatest hope of making the American nation a temperate one lies in the spread of the habit of drinking wine at meal-time, instead of taking cocktails before, and raw whisky after dinner. This habit would ultimately make of the American a temperate race.

T

O FENTON, in the hot corner of the Golden West Hotel porch, hastened the girl school teacher of Brave Bull Creek.

"He is coming now," she announced, "and I want you to look at him."

Fenton rose to offer her the sag-seated rocker, and perched upon the worn rail beside it.

"Now who," he drawled lazily, "might you have in mind when

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"Hush!" she implored. "Oh, you know! I described him last evening. Oh, there! Oh, isn't it warm to-day." Her voice trailed off into the conventional.

Fenton, turning with precarious carelessness on the rail, saw a tall, darkskinned ranger lift his hat and bow with sinuous grace. Typical in face and bearing, but extreme in dress, he strode on, his spurs clicking softly in the quiet street, his supple shoulders undulating under a silken shirt.

Fenton grinned, and turned again to the girl. "Stunner, isn't he?" he indulged

her.

"Isn't he?" she sighed, softly; "and so interesting," she continued. "He told me about a bear hunt he was on last winter." "Bear?" asked Fenton. "Must have borrowed him from a circus. There hasn't been any bear about here in ten years." Miss Clayton looked hurt. "But you don't know; you've only just come yourself."

Fenton smiled into her troubled eyes. Her short skirt and high shoes were obviously new, and he hated them. But her bright hair still curled as in New England fogs, her skin was not yet tanned, and her soft blouses had a daintiness of lace that spelled the East to Fenton's longing. "Doesn't year count?" he asked.

But she returned to her favorite theme of the West. "It's so splendid here, isn't it?" she continued, and her white hands

included the whole of the curbless street that began in the midst of the prairie, held a narrow way between tentative buildings, and finally tapered out into the westbound trail.

"I've longed for years to come here," she continued. "I was not intended to live in the East. Why, everything in me is primitive primitive," she repeated. "Don't you feel that way yourself? Oh, you must have, or you wouldn't have come here to make your way."

Fenton turned from her fresh face and gazed toward the low, unclouded sun. Into the shadow of the hotel porch a young Indian stumbled lazily, and sitting upon the sand, relaxed into instant sleep. A half dozen rangers clattered by on dusty ponies. The swaying doors of a saloon across the way let out a laughing group. A work train jolted in over the new road.

His gaze returned to the girl. "I rather believe," he said smilingly, "that the primitives have been thrust upon me. In fact, I've been a year or so learning to hold my own among 'em. The wild in me," he continued, "comes only in response to call -an urgent call for coin; butter, you know, and bread."

And then he went away to interview the foreman of the work train.

A week later he returned from a survey at the end of the new road that was pushing westward under his guidance, and found his place at the hotel table usurped by the swaggering hero of Miss Clayton's eulogy. From a neighboring table, therefore. he ate his fried steak and waved away the busy fly, while Miss Clayton suspended her biscuit in mid-air, and the hero detailed his exploits. Fenton saw, also, with regret, that Miss Clayton's hands were growing brown, and that her dainty nose. was sunburned.

That evening he encountered the hero in a saloon. Blewett saw him enter, and

instantly advanced upon him. "Look here," he said; "I saw you looking at her to-night again, and I won't have it; you understand? I won't have it."

Fenton drew back a little. "Gently, my son," he said. "Have you filed that claim yourself? I haven't seen notice."

Blewett hesitated a moment under the engineer's gentle banter. "Yes, I have," he said, finally, "and you'll keep offsee ?"

Fenton removed his hat and turned it about idly. "So?" he said, still gently. "Drink?"

Blewett scowled, then nodded to Fenton's "twice."

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The incipient crowd dispersed at the sign of peace, and Blewett's enmity hastend to obliterate itself. He became friendly, chummy, communicative, and Fenton's ears poured the tale of his love. She had refused him, to be sure. Fenton felt an unaccountable relief. But he was determined. He encircled Fenton's shoulders with a heavy arm, and recounted Miss Clayton's charms. "She also loves the West," he said, "and the adventures, the romance, the primitive. I have told her of the raid at Rixman's, and she was thrilled. Yes. And now we shall have another raid. To-morrow night it is to be. Fortunately Terrill of the bar O is in. I have told the boys that I humor her to make the romance for her, and they, too, will assist."

Half incredulous, half apprehensive, Fenton listened while Blewett rambled on until his tongue slipped gently into a sibilant speech like that of his mother's mother, who had been a squaw.

At last Fenton shook himself free and escaped, to grow calm under the cool night sky.

At the hotel, he found his newly arrived assistant, Halland, awaiting him-bluff Ha! of his college days, and so hungry was he for his own kind that the surprise almost unnerved him.

After the night of reunion and reminiscence, they made early start for the road's end. Late into the following night they studied plans and technicalities, and Fenton had but fallen asleep when Halland roused him. "What in thunder is going on down below, Fen?" he asked. "Listen !"

Fenton, instantly awake, listened. Horses stamped gently beneath his window. Beyond, some one stumbled as upon strange ground, and low talking was suddenly hushed. Fenton shot out of bed and began to hunt for his clothes, as the memory of Blewett flashed into his mind. "Get your rags and come on," he whispered fiercely to Halland. "Here, take this gun. Get up, I tell you, and hurry." Astounded, Halland began to dress, while Fenton's explanation came in synthesis. "Girl," he whispered. "Eastromantic-Blewett-half breed-fool

oh, Lord! hurry up."

The halls and stairs creaked beneath their stealthy feet. Failing to open the door they climbed through an office window into the porch shadow. The delay was costly, for with sudden whirl a small group of horsemen clattered, past them and broke into a gallop in the open road. Two of them guarded one between, and Fenton lowered his rifle with a catching breath. "They've got her," he said, "the fools! the fools! Come on; we've got to stop 'em. Come on!"

Together they ran down the street. The early moon had set, but the stars shone above the dust cloud still in the motionless air. From the stable corral they took two surprised bronchos, made quick work of saddling and were off.

Now, when the gentle young Father Mulholland set out to make his annual summer visit to his Indian mission at Big Moose Bend, he sighed with relief when he heard that the new railroad had been pushed on nearly two hundred miles westward. He hated to travel by wagon. But now he had been many hours on this erratic young road with its exceedingly old cars, and he had learned that every curve held possibilities of delay.

The morning was young when the sharp jolting of the brakes awoke him. From the window he saw only the lineless gray prairie, and he lifted his large frame painfully from among the angles of the elongated chair. At the door he met a hurrying man with a green-eyed lantern. "That's right," said the man-"come on, you're wanted, quick."

"There is trouble?" he asked, startled. "Yes, trouble," replied the brakeman

angrily. "It's that crazy bar O gang again. They've hung us up here about a dozen times since we started running here. They've held us up fer fun, and they have stolen our engine when they wanted to get to town sudden. They greased our rails when we had the chief himself on-and now it's a wedding. They're clean crazy, them cow-punchers.'

A yell greeted the perturbed Father as he made his way hesitatingly in the early light toward the station house. Blewett's party was re-inforced, and the bar O was full of joy. The conductor, backed up against the station, swore steadily at the grinning men whose guns were quick and handy.

Inside the station, Blewett bent, with ill-concealed fury, over a white-faced girl. Untouched by romance, and unbending beneath his eager eyes, she threatened to bring unstinted ridicule upon him. Even with the good Father almost at hand, she refused steadily to marry.

Furiously he tramped the tiny room. "But I tell you, you must," he said, stopping before her, "and"

A noise of hoofs made him turn. At the platform, two dust-white men flung themselves from horses, and faced the idling crowd with guns. For an astonished moment no one spoke, and Fenton's quick eyes recognized Terrill. "Where is Blewett, Terrill?" he asked.

Terrill nodded toward the station. Fenton sprang forward and Blewett met him at the door, his dark face flushed and ugly. Terrill's arm shot out, and Fenton's gun fell harmlessly. A dozen men sprang forward to separate them. The bar O's were not out for murder. Suddenly the group parted and the girl slipped through to Fenton, and hid her sobs shamelessly in his arms.

Instantly rose a surprised and laughing cheer, and eager hands pushed forward the bewildered priest.

"My boy," said he to the breathless Fenton, "does she wish to marry you?"

Fenton gasped, and the bar O's answered as one man, for they were out for a wedding. Halland, too, saw light. He turned to the Father. turned to the Father. "This-this villain," he indicated Blewett, "tried to abduct her."

The Father understood. Gently he disengaged Miss Clayton from Fenton's arms. "There, there!" he said, "calm yourself." He turned, towering with youthful dignity, to the excited crowd. "Silence," he said. "My friends, this is a strange place for a marriage, but since these young people are determined,” he turned again, and Fenton, standing in the pale sunlight, looked up from the girl's face and made answer:

"We are quite determined, Father," he said.